Panasonic predicts loss of $10 billion for fiscal year

LONDON – Panasonic, one of the Japanese electronics giants, has said that it expects to make a net loss of 780.0 billion yen (about $10.2 billion) in the fiscal year that runs to March 31, 2012.

The forecasted loss is nearly double that of the previous guidance of a net loss of 420.0 billion yen (about $5.5 billion). The updated forecast was made as Panasonic announced its third fiscal quarter results.

Panasonic blamed the Great East Japan Earthquake and the flooding in Thailand for its poor results in the third quarter and in the first nine months of the financial year. It added that the global economic slowdown and European debt crisis were causing uncertainty and inhibiting spending.

The company joins other Japanese companies that have produced poor results in this season, including Toshiba and Sony. This is partly due to poor comparison with a year ago when there was high demand as a result of an eco-point stimulus package provided by the Japanese government.

In particular it seems that Japanese television manufacturers are struggling to compete with south-east Asian competition in LCD television.

It is the ever increasing presence of Korean giants LG and Samsung across the globe that is , in my opinion killing the Japanese companies.
If Japanese Car makers and scooter makers can survive the onslaught then what is wrong with these , once upon a time giant, electronics companies? Japanese need to do some soul seraching on that.

Sad to see this. Japanese companies are going down. I worked in Japan for a Japanese MNC R&D for nearly 3 years and almost everyone in the company were above 35 years old. They rarely hired fresh engineers coz of lack of availability and had to hire foreigners to fill the gap.

It is quite disappointing to read this about Panasonic. They make most reliable and technically very sound product. I wish they change marketing model and reduce price to get back market share and deliver more wonderful products.

Teach and grow young talents:
For many Japanese companies, this is time to change the work culture. They are not ready to teach and grow young talents. They have to improve the management skills and bring good result from team work. Japan is full of sales teams now, and very less technical development.
Accept new ideas and bring them fast to market:
In one Japanese company, still they debug with serial ports as full time job while the remaining world almost forgot them. Even if you write code for new CPU, you will be blackmailed in the name of review and the product will reach the market after a long delay.